There's a Light On In Chicago
by AliceJericho
Summary: It's been 12 months since CM Punk was last seen on WWE programming – his story has been told to the world, he has moved on to other endeavours and he is happier than he has been in years. The only thing missing is the girl he left behind. The girl who has a hard time letting a go of a grudge. Punk/OC. -One Shot-


_There's a Light on in Chicago_

* * *

Bex.

* * *

For the first time in her career, Bex wished that she was a heel. If she was a heel then she would have been able to justifiably shout back at the crowd when they started to chant his name. It wasn't like they were chanting it because they used to date – they had been chanting his name _all evening_, thinking that if they chanted loud enough he would appear as a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble match. In all honestly, everyone had been expecting them to. It was the one year anniversary of his last appearance and they were in _Philadelphia_ of all places so it was hardly surprising.

It took all Bex had in her – and a few discrete taps on the shoulder from Tyson – to keep from tearing into one man in the front row who thought he was edgy and cool for wearing a CM Punk shirt.

_He's gone. He fucked off. He left you just like he left all of us. He's not coming back. Not for you. Not for me. Get. The. Fuck. Over. It._

That's all she really wanted to say to him – get right in his face and make sure he never wore another CM Punk shirt as long as he lived.

"You saw that, right?" she asked Triple H who was sitting backstage near the monitors. "The guy with the Punk shirt?"

"We're sorting it out now," he responded, not bothering to look at her. She rolled her eyes and quickly caught up to Nattie, Nikki and Brie.

"He _still_ doesn't like you?" Brie asked, looking over her shoulder briefly.

"Why would he? I couldn't give him the information that he wanted after Punk left," Bex shrugged.

As always she checked her phone as soon as she returned to the locker room but instead of responding to any messages she might have received – usually her father sending her a thumbs up – she pushed it straight into the bottom of her bag. The other girls said nothing, knowing that she Phil's name must have been on the screen.

Without a word, Bex started to strip out of her ring gear and change into clean clothes, ready to watch the rest of the Pay Per View from one of the many televisions set up backstage. When she arrived at one, taking up a position beside Tyson, she was delighted to see that the man wearing Punk's shirt was no longer there.

"He got to see three matches," Bex reasoned. "He should be happy he even got let in."

* * *

Punk.

* * *

He could see it clearly all throughout her match. The chants were getting to her and if Tyson hadn't been at ringside to keep her in check, Phil was sure that Bex would have broken character.

The chants didn't bother him at all – in fact, there were times when he thought them highly amusing – but Bex didn't deserve it. Back when he first left she was on the receiving end of them almost every time she stepped into the ring but they eventually died out. She was notably happier for it.

He had called her as soon as her match was finished, knowing that she wouldn't have been able to answer it. Calling when she _couldn't_ answer made him feel a lot better than calling when she _wouldn't_.

The lack of response didn't surprise him. So he called his back-up plan.

"I'm risking my friendship with you by picking up the phone. You know that, right?"

She never answered the phone any other way.

"Yet you still answer when I call." His retort hadn't changed, either.

"What do you want?" she asked over the zipping of a bag. "I don't have anything else to tell you."

"Is she okay? After the chants?"

"What do you think?"

He was taken aback by how sharp her tone was. Never had she been that way with him and he realised that he was really beginning to wear at her patience.

"Nattie..." he sighed. He hoped she would hear how desperate he was. That's what the phone calls were: an act of desperation.

"What, Phil? Stop trying to call her. Stop doing this to her. Stop doing this to yourself. She's trying to move on and you should do the same."

Silence struck him. He didn't want to move on and he sure as hell didn't want Bex to move on. He made some mistakes when he left and he knew that. He left it too late to call her and he knew _that_. But he was trying. Even when he knew it was too late.

"A guy got kicked out for wearing your shirt," Nattie told him. "She made sure it happened. That's how much you hurt her."

"How do I fix it?"

"I don't know if you can."

* * *

Bex.

* * *

It was exhausting. Between her job and her family Bex couldn't remember the last time she had felt rested. After five straight days of travel Bex would fly back to Idaho to make sure that her father and brother hadn't disappeared underneath all of the trash they left around the house, to make sure that they hadn't starved to death, to make sure they hadn't drunk themselves into a coma.

Her first stop, as always, was Mrs Wickham, their next door neighbour. Bex had asked her to keep an eye on the two men while she was away and it was necessary to be filled in.

"Your brother went to work this week, dear," Mrs Wickham said happily. "He told me that he needed to get out of the house."

Bex sighed in relief, "That's good news."

"Your father, though."

"I know," Bex nodded. "I didn't expect him to be better, it's okay."

After taking the week's mail from Mrs Wickham, Bex began the walk to her father's house. She did so slowly, unconsciously trying to delay having to deal with either of them. Even if her brother had left the house for the first time in nearly a month, she wasn't anticipating a miracle.

"Dad? Tristan?" She called after opening the front door. She chose to keep it open after nearly gagging on the smell of stale beer and general stuffiness. "Guys?"

She stepped over multiple empty beer cartons on her way to the house's main area and was entirely unsurprised to see her dad fast asleep on his recliner. After dropping a light kiss to the top of his head, Bex walked around and picked up the week's worth of trash. It shouldn't have been her job and she understood that but if she didn't do it then it would never get done. Her father was grieving and he needed all the help he could get.

"Bex? You here?"

Bex was taken aback by how _lively_ her brother sounded as he walked through the front door. Her instinctive reaction was to drop the trash back onto the floor and run to greet her brother. She hugged him tight around the waist, squeezing him tightly for the first time in months.

"You left the house," she sighed happily. "I am so happy that you left the house."

The relief in her voice was evident but it was overpowered by how tired she sounded. The knowledge that her brother was leaving the house, that he was working, made Bex happier than she had been in awhile. Maybe she would be able to get some rest.

* * *

Punk.

* * *

"Mr Brooks?"

"Yeah, hey Tom. Is Bex in?"

"I'm afraid not," the doorman shook his head. "I haven't seen you in a long while, Mr Brooks."

"I've been keeping a low profile," Phil responded casually. "She's not here?"

"She hasn't been for quite some time. She spends most of her time in Idaho."

"Idaho?" Phil frowned. Idaho was her hometown, sure, but he knew for a fact that she didn't like going back more often than she had to. Birthdays were the only reason Bex ever went back and that no one in her family had a birthday in March.

"Yes, but I do have something for you," Tom said before momentarily disappearing into the room behind his desk. He returned with a large cardboard box. "It's been sitting back here for over twelve months. I was meaning to send it to you but Miss Maynard wouldn't give me your address."

Phil pulled it towards him and gritted his teeth when he saw what she had written on the top. _'Cunt'_ had been written in perfect cursive – Tom had written 'Phil' underneath it. Tom was still talking as Phil opened the box to check what was inside of it. It wasn't anything he particularly missed or he wouldn't have waited 14 months to get it.

He looked back up at Tom, "She forgot to pack something, can I go up and get it?"

It was a lie but if Tom sensed it he didn't say anything. One question could have unravelled the lie – _what did you forget, sir?_ – because he had no idea what he could possibly have left.

Tom let him go up alone and Punk, the moment he stepped into the apartment, regretted it. Though he had spent next to no time in the apartment – he and Bex always seemed to end up in Chicago on their days off – it smelt _so much _like her that he had to stop to recollect himself.

The apartment didn't look lived in. Tom had said that she was spending most of her time in Idaho but Phil hadn't taken that to mean _every day off for the past however many months_. The idea that she wasn't coming home concerned him – what could possibly have prompted to go back to Idaho so often?

He ran both of his hands down his face and decided that he needed to leave.

* * *

Bex.

* * *

Bex knew that it was a long shot, showing up at his door looking like she hadn't showered or slept in three days and smelling like everything he swore he would never become, but she was in a city where she only knew one address. She had reeled it off to the taxi driver without hesitation, only second guessing it when they were on the street. It was fleeting. When she handed him some bills she wasn't sure how much was there but he seemed content enough to let her get out of his car.

Bex took one look at his steps and sat down at the bottom, unzipping her boots so that she could rip them off. The alcohol coursing through her veins made her feel unsusceptible to surely inevitable frost bite – she was so drunk that she couldn't even feel her feet hitting the steps let alone the freezing cold concrete beneath her feet.

With her boots in hand she rang the doorbell and laughed at the noise it made - not that it was in any way novel or worth a laugh. No one came to answer the door after the first ring, so she tried again, this time by pressing the button multiple times in quick succession.

A light turned on and she withdrew her hand, not wanting to be caught. Being the sole person on the doorstep would _never_ have given it away.

"Do you have _any_ fucking idea what time it is?"

It was Phil, of course, who ripped open the door with an aggressive snarl on his face but his expression didn't stop Bex from smiling.

"Hi," she greeted, her head lolling to the side. She usually tilted her head when greeting people but the movement was so purposeless that Punk frowned.

"Why are you here?" There was no need for him to ask how much she had had to drink because the answer was either going to be 'too much' or 'I can't remember'.

"I live here," she said, trying to step into the house only to have him block her path with his body. "I know I's drinkin' but I want to bed. 'M sorry," she apologised, leaning into for a hug. He pushed her back, the sudden movement enough to almost send her toppling backwards.

"You don't live here, Bex," he said to her softly, watching her face contort as she tried to think. "You said you weren't coming back, that New York was your home now."

"I don' like it," she mumbled. "You aren' there. You're here. 'M here. Chic'go is m'home."

"Jesus Christ," Phil sighed, taking Bex by the hands and pulling her inside. It was too cold to be having that argument in the door.

"I didn' mean't," she said as she walked through to the couch, swaying dangerously as she did. "I's angry. I miss you, lots."

She reached the couch, but barely, and dropped her shoes to the ground as she collapsed onto it.

"Bex, you can't be mad at me when you wake up, okay?" He said, knowing very well that she wouldn't remember it when she woke up. "I didn't ask you to come here."

"'S'only addr'ss I 'member," she told him sleepily. "'M sorry."

* * *

Punk.

* * *

Glad that she had fallen asleep, Phil walked into his spare room and pulled the blanket off of the bed. He couldn't say it was the first time she had fallen asleep drunk on the couch but this was the first time he wasn't going to carry her into his bedroom.

"What am I going to do with you?" he asked as he stood over her, covering her with the blanket.

There were worse places that she could have ended up so, even if it was after three in the morning, he was happy that she had found her way to his house.

He sat down on the armchair beside her, just watching her. It wasn't discrete by any means but it didn't need to be if she was black out drunk. He hadn't seen her in so long but she looked almost exactly the same as the last time he saw her in person. Only that she had dyed her hair a deep maroon and had bangs cut blunt across her eyebrows. It was something she had been talking about long before he left the company and he was glad that she had done it. Surprised that the company had let her but glad.

"Philip?"

He jolted upright, unaware that she had woken up. He smiled down at her softly when she opened her eyes and looked at him, clearly still drunk.

"Yeah, Rebecca?"

"I miss you."

Her voice was quiet and her words were still slurred together – only made worse by being half asleep – but he had had enough conversations with Drunk Bex that he understood her perfectly.

"Me, too," he told her, sighing as she rolled over to face the back of the couch and promptly fell back asleep.

He hadn't seen her so drunk since before they got together. He wasn't claiming to have _saved_ her by any means – she was a grown woman who frequently told him that she didn't _need_ to be saved – but she had stopped drinking in excess because of his Straight Edge views. Her run on television hadn't been the best but she was on Raw almost every week which is more than could be said for a lot of the other divas and neither Natalya nor AJ had told him that she was having any issues backstage so he couldn't work out what would prompt her to become so drunk that she ended up on his front doorstep.

Perhaps it was solely because she was in Chicago. Maybe he had hurt her more than he ever thought.

* * *

Bex.

* * *

The light hit her before anything else did. It hadn't woken her – she had done that herself – but it had made her groan the second she registered it.

She was about to open her eyes to find out where she was when she recognised the smell. She groaned again.

_I'm dead,_ she thought to herself. _I am dead and this is what hell feels and smells like._ Only, she didn't mean it. Sure, hell probably felt that way but there was no way that it smelt so good.

"-at my door at 2:30 this morning, shit faced like I've never seen her before. Why isn't she at the hotel? How did she _get_ here? Why wasn't anyone watching her? Everyone in that company is fucking useless."

Bex screwed her eyes shut tighter, trying to fight the lines that were starting to appear in her eyes. She shifted on the couch and used her arm to cover her eyes, drawing Phil's attention.

"She's awake. I'll try get her back to the hotel but I think she's getting a migraine so let someone know that it could be awhile."

"Please make it stop," she whined, rolling onto her stomach, hoping to hide her face into her pillow.

"This is your Frova," Phil said and she heard a container of pills being set down onto the coffee table. "You think you can keep that down?"

Bex pushed herself into a sitting position, squinting at Phil who was sitting on the coffee table beside her medication and a glass of water. As she reached out for it, Phil placed one pill in her hand and then the glass of water in the other.

"Can you wait 20 minutes before you yell at me?" She asked, lying back down on the couch. "I just need to not move for 20 minutes."

Phil respected her wishes and Bex spent the next half an hour just lying on his couch, shielding her eyes with a pillow as she tried to will away her migraine as well as think about what she could possibly say to him to make him understand.

When she was finally ready to do so, Bex stood up, pushed down the feeling of needing to vomit, and walked into his kitchen.

She took a deep breath and spoke slowly and calmly: "My mum died."

* * *

Punk.

* * *

"My mum died."

Phil froze. He hadn't heard her come into the kitchen. In the previous year he had conjured up a long list of possible first conversations they would have with each other. Not one of them started that way.

"She died?" he asked quietly, looking straight into her eyes.

"She fell off the balcony and they couldn't control the swelling in her brain," Bex told him, staring off behind his head, avoiding his direct gaze. "It happened back in October."

"October? _Fuck, Bex_," he said. He watched as her breathing became heavier.

"This is how I've been dealing with it," she said. "I drink whenever I have two seconds to myself because on my days off I have to go back to Idaho and make sure Dad and Tristan are okay, you know?"

"They're not your responsibility, Bex," Phil said, noting that she looked far too tired for how long she had slept the night before. Everything about her screamed exhaustion. "They're adults, they can look after themselves."

She shook her head at him, "No, they can't. Tristan can, he got better," she clarified, sucking in a deep breath. He could see tears sitting in her eyes. "Dad? I don't know if he's ever going to recover. I don't know if I'm ever going to recover. I haven't had time to grieve. I haven't had time to think about the fact that my mum is _dead_. She's dead, Phil. I didn't get to say goodbye."

Phil brought his hand up to his mouth as he considered his next move. Would holding her be inappropriate? Had he lost the right to do that? Then again, could he just leave her standing by herself as she started to sob?

"I needed you," she cried, her shoulders slumping. "I needed you but you left me."

"It wasn't supposed to be like that," he started to explain. "Just a few weeks so no one came to talk to you – that was it."

"They _all_ came to talk to me!" She exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. "What the fuck kind of good did it do to leave me in the dark as well?"

"I thought I was doing you a favour."

"Yeah, some kind of fucking favour it was," she spat at him. "By the way? Nattie and AJ were working for me. All of the conversations you had with them? They never told you anything I didn't want them to. That's why they didn't tell you about my mum. That's why they didn't tell you about the drinking. They're _my friends_, Phil."

He stood there, stuck to the spot, as she turned her back on him and left the kitchen. That was about the only thing that made sense.

* * *

Bex.

* * *

Bex, after leaving the kitchen, walked straight back to the couch and went to work pulling her shoes on. She shouldn't have even bothered trying to talk to him. She should have just left as soon as she had woken up.

"Please don't go."

His voice startled her, causing her to jump off the couch about half an inch. Bex ignored him and continued trying to fix the strap on her heels.

"Bex, come on. I missed you."

"That's great, Phil," she snapped at him. "I have work today."

His silence unnerved her and when he sat down beside her she jumped again. She wished that he would say something and not just stare at her. It wasn't until she made to stand up that he did anything. His hand encased her wrist and kept her on the couch.

"_Please_ forgive me," he pleaded. "I don't deserve it, I know, but I will work on it. I want you to come to Chicago on your days off. I want to meet you in other dumb cities. I just want to be with you."

Bex breath became shaky again, just as it had been when she told him about her mum. She naturally leaned into him and let him wrap her in his arms. Her home wasn't in any one place. It was with him.

* * *

**a/n just a random one shot I thought up. It's been a while since I've posted one that was unrelated to anything else, so I thought I'd give it a go. Turns out, they're just as painful as I remember. Not enough room for a huge back story or character development for my liking.**

**Thoughts? On characterisation? Format? Anything?**


End file.
